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Radiohead consciously patterned their sprawling, epic song, “Paranoid Android,” after the Beatles’ “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.” “It really started out as three separate songs and we didn’t know what to do with them,” explains singer/rhythm guitarist Thom Yorke.

“Then we thought of ‘Happiness’—which was obviously three different bits that John Lennon put together—and said, ‘Why don’t we try that?’ “ Still, the song wasn’t really complete until lead player Jonny Greenwood added a fourth section as a fade out—a lengthy, intense solo, which alternates between being backwards and forwards. “It was something I had floating around for a while and the song needed a certain burn,” recalls Greenwood. “I don’t usually have stockpiles of riffs lying around, but this happened to be the right key and the right speed and it fit right in.”